Mobile digital-only banking platform NorthOne has closed a $2 million seed round to build a mobile API-powered banking platform for small businesses. The latest round is led by investors Peter Graham, Tom Williams, and initial investor Ferst Capital Partners.

NorthOne is building a mobile-first, API-enabled banking platform serving Canadian small business (SMBs), startups and freelancers. NorthOne’s mission is to eliminate the devastating impact that poor financial literacy and financial management has on small business failure rates and costs. NorthOne’s banking platform acts as the tech-forward finance department that SMBs could never afford. The NorthOne mobile app and API-enabled bank account connects to all the financial management tools businesses already use and gives them clarity into their financial health in real time while also automating the most time consuming financial management tasks.

Founded in 2016 by Eytan Bensoussan and Justin Adler, NorthOne is Canada’s first mobile focused tech-powered banking platform designed around the unique needs of small businesses, freelancers and startups. Given the impact that poor financial literacy and controllership have on small business failure rates and costs, NorthOne is building a banking platform whose very mission is to eliminate these problems. As such, it not only acts as a banking platform, but as the tech-forward finance department so many of these businesses could never afford. The NorthOne team is anchored around eliminating the busy work and pain that small business owners are burdened with as a result of banking and financial management. The NorthOne platform lets them spend less time banking and more time building their business. NorthOne is based out of Toronto and Montreal with team members and advisors located across North America.

“We’re building a banking platform that is designed around the unique needs of small businesses” said NorthOne co-founder and CEO Eytan Bensoussan. “Our team is focused on creating a banking experience that is designed to save entrepreneurs money, time and stress. We’re talking about hundreds of dollars in savings each month.”

More than 4,000 businesses have already signed up for NorthOne accounts ahead of the platform’s launch. Based on the traction that NorthOne has seen, their founding team led a discussion on FinTech growth at SXSW 2018.

“NorthOne is one of those true platform opportunities. The team’s vision is to be an API-centric bank,” said investor Tom Williams. “There is no major bank that will EVER be able to rebuild their infrastructure to do this effectively.”

“NorthOne is building something unique,” said Dom Ferst, Managing Partner at Ferst Capital Partners. “ They’re transforming the burdensome relationship that SMBs have with financial management into an intuitive one through API-powered technology .”

Following this round of investment, NorthOne plans to use the funds to expand the size of their team from 5 to 15 and complete development of the NorthOne platform ahead of a late 2018 launch. Specific details on pricing will be announced closer to launch, but it will be based around a flat monthly fee which includes unlimited transactions and 3rd party app integrations.